Mets Place Scott Hairston, Andres Torres On Waivers

The Mets have placed Scott Hairston and Andres Torres on waivers, a major league source told Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com. The Mets have said that they want to be competitive in the month of September but may be willing to part with Hairston as they sit with a 58-69 record heading into this afternoon's game against the Astros.

The club has yet to have contract extension talks with Hairston, though he recently indicated that he would be open to the discussion. The 32-year-old has a slash line of .272/.312/.512 with 14 homers in 104 games this season for the Mets.

On the other hand, Torres has been viewed as a possible non-tender candidate for 2013. The centerfielder is earning $2.7MM this season and would see something in the neighborhood of $3MM in arbitration this winter. For the Mets, it wouldn't make a great deal of sense to dole out such a deal for a fourth outfielder.

Nady is hitting .247/.321/.479 in 20 games for Fresno. To give you an idea how not MLB worthy that is here are some other Fresno batting lines:
Manny Burriss .284/.364/.373
Brett Pill .279/.329/.482
Conor Gillaspie .288/.346/.456
Todd Linden .276/.359/.446
Justin Christian .343/.409/.508
The PCL is incredibly hitter friendly and skews numbers, Nady is washed up, hasn’t been a good major leaguer in 5 years and is extremely unlikely to help any MLB team ever again. They’d probably be better off re-signing Bonds to play LF.

not trying to defend Nady, but the names you brought up mostly did not perform well up in MLB. Pill, Gillaspie, and Christian were all brought up, and they did not do well at all. Anyone is worth a shot right now when a LF is needed. The worst thing that can happen is that he gets sent back or released.

The fact that those guys were all bad at the MLB level is exactly my point. They’re all poor MLB players yet outperforming a ‘hot’ Nady in Fresno. None of those guys is a better option than blanco who will at least play elite defense in lf. The best internal option as a 4th of is probably still Christian or pill

I think this is why the Mets put him on waivers after the Dodger deal, the only problem is the Dodgers are behind the Giants and have lots of $$$ so they will claim him just to block the Giants from getting him. Basically the Giants have no shot at getting him.

I’m surprised Sandy Alderson didn’t wait a few extra days to see if the Dodgers pass the Giants; the Giants would trade for him if they could access him whereas the Dodgers will just take his contract to block.

Unless the Dodgers are at the luxury tax line for this year, I’m not sure how that works with pro-rated salaries, but its possible they might not be willing to pay luxury tax money just to block Hairston or Torres. Then again, I think the Diamondbacks, Pirates, and Cardinals could all be interested enough in those players to prevent them from being Giants.

If Hairston’s on waivers, I would think the Cardinals should claim him. Insurance against Beltran’s knees holding up and he’s a solid right handed pinch hitter with power. Good player to have around if you want to give an outfielder a day or two off too.

My thought at the deadline was Hairston in a platoon with Nate and Blanco Pence is a better player than all of them, but is he a 9 to 12M dollar upgrade to a platoon of the three? Pence will make 13-15M next year. could the Giants Use that money to sign a better player than Pence?

You just made another good point why it was fortunate the giants landed Pence considering Melky’s pending suspension at the trade deadline. Relying on a OF of Hairston, Pagan and Schierholtz in September would’ve been pretty bad.

I wonder if anyone on the staff can answer this, because I don’t know the answer to this: What are the rules that govern salary arbitration raises? I ask because with a topic being the Mets, and both Torres (possibly) and Pelfrey (likely) being non-tender candidates, how much would the minimum offer have to be to keep them?

As for Hairston, I think that he will be claimed by the Dodgers to block the Giants.

What about acquiring Scott Hairston, he has hit Giants pitching well and I think he can be a valuable tangiable to This Giants ballclub. As for Xavier Nady, he’s a journeyman and I don’t see him contributing that much. As for adding Andres Torres, he is better than Gregor Blanco/Juan Peguero. I can’t believe in 2 weeks, Brian Sabean couldn’t find a reliable replacement than Gregor The Hitless Blanco.